If you are unable to drag a cell to autofill, the Fill Handle might be disabled. Here’s how to enable Fill Handle to fix the problem.
One of Excel’s excellent features is the ability to drag a cell using its Fill Handle to autofill the cell below it or adjacent to it. For example, if you are creating a column of dates, all you have to do is enter the date in one cell and then click & drag the small square dot (Fill Handle) at the bottom-right corner of the cell to autofill. It’s such a simple but very useful feature.
However, if you are unable to use the Fill Handle to autofill cells, this feature may be disabled accidentally or due to a misconfiguration. Thankfully, this problem is fairly easy to fix. All you have to do is enable the Fill Handle in Excel. Once done, you can drag any cell using the fill handle to autofill.
In this quick and easy guide, I will show you how to enable Fill Handle in Excel in just a few steps. Let’s get started.
Steps to Enable Fill Handle in Excel
To fix the drag and fill handle not working problem in Excel, you must enable the Fill Handle feature. Here’s how:
- Open any Excel document.
- Click the “File” option at the top.
- Click “Options“.
- Go to the “Advanced” tab on the sidebar.
- Select the “Enable fill handle and cell drag and drop” checkbox.
- Click “OK“.
- With that, the fill handle is enabled, and you can now drag cells to autofill.
Detailed Steps (With Screenshots)
First, you need to open Excel. To do that, either open the Excel application directly by searching for it in the Start menu or by double-clicking any Excel file. Once the Excel application opens, click the “File” option at the top nav bar and then click the “Options” option at the bottom of the left sidebar.
Note: If you’ve opened the Excel application by searching for it in the Start menu, click the “Options” option directly. No need to click the “File” option first.
The above action opens the Excel Options dialog. In it, go to the “Advanced” tab on the sidebar. Next, select the “Enable fill handle and cell drag and drop” checkbox. Click the “OK” button to save the changes.
That is all. You’ve enabled the Fill Handle feature in Excel. From now on, you can click and drag any cell using the fill handle icon (a small square dot in the bottom-right corner of the selected cell) to autofill.
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If you have any questions or need help, comment below. I’ll be happy to assist.
